Stock company of the Bavarian Eastern Railways
The royal privileged corporation of the Bavarian Eastern Railways (BOB) was founded in 1856. In just two decades, they built an extensive rail network in Eastern Bavaria, Upper Palatinate and Lower Bavaria, which were previously largely untouched by rail traffic , most of which is still important today in local and long-distance traffic for Deutsche Bahn .
founding
In the first decade, the construction of the Bavarian state railway network concentrated on the routes of the Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn , the Ludwigs-West-Bahn and, most recently, the Bavarian Maximiliansbahn . Now the majority of the Bavarian state parliament rejected a further expansion of the state railway network because of the tight financial situation of the state and the unprofitable operation of the railways at the time. As a result, Eastern Bavaria would have remained without rail connections if the Landtag had not passed a law on March 19, 1856 that allowed the establishment of private railway companies in Bavaria and made it easier to finance them through state interest guarantees.
In addition to private individuals, merchants, factory owners and brewers from this area of the country, Prince Maximilian Karl von Thurn und Taxis from Regensburg , four credit institutions from this area and the manufacturers Theodor von Cramer-Klett , Nuremberg , and Josef Anton were also involved in improving their own business situation from Maffei , Munich. They provided start-up capital of 60 million guilders for the railway construction in Eastern Bavaria and the necessary vehicles. In the same year they founded the Royal Privileged Stock Corporation of the Bavarian Eastern Railways. King Maximilian II of Bavaria approved the establishment of the company on April 12, 1856 and granted it the requested license “... to build and operate the railways from Nuremberg via Amberg to Regensburg, from Munich via Landshut to the Danube, from Regensburg via Straubing and Passau to the state border, from the Amberg-Regensburg line near Schwandorf to the state border near Furth against Pilsen ... "
The company's director was the well-known railway specialist Paul Camille von Denis (1795–1872), who not only built the first German railway line from Nuremberg to Fürth , but also the first railway lines in other German countries. He succeeded in building the lines mentioned in the concession ready for operation within just five years, while remaining 17 million guilders below the estimated costs of 60 million guilders. Heinrich von Hügel (1828–1899) was jointly responsible for the successful implementation of this railway project. As a “directorate architect”, he was responsible for the planning and supervision of the construction.
Track construction
On the first route from the state capital Munich via Freising to the Lower Bavarian capital Landshut (71 km), passenger and freight traffic began on November 3rd and 15th, 1858. In Munich, the Ostbahn had its own station on the site of today's Starnberg wing station . Contrary to today's route, the route ran east of Nymphenburg directly north to Feldmoching. A year later, on December 12, 1859, the route via Neufahrn - Geiselhöring to Straubing on the Danube was extended (57 km). From Geiselhöring, the junction in the direction of Regensburg and on through the Upper Palatinate the Nuremberg – Schwandorf railway via Schwandorf - Amberg - Neukirchen to Hersbruck (left of the Pegnitz) with 133 km went into operation. The section Hersbruck - Nuremberg (28 km) was already used from May 9, 1859. The Straubing - Plattling - Passau route , 77 km long, was opened by the Ostbahn on September 20, 1860. In Landshut and Regensburg, terminal stations were built, which were converted into through stations in 1880 and 1873, respectively. The construction diaries of the Regensburg - Schwandorf section are in the possession of the Regensburg City Archives .
For the merchants involved in the Eastern Railway, the continuation of the historically grown trade, but now with the faster railway, across the border to Austria was extremely important. Therefore, on September 1, 1861, the first connection with the Austrian railway network was established in Passau by connecting to a branch of the kk priv. Kaiserin Elisabeth-Bahn (KEB). In the same year the connection followed from Schwandorf via Cham (January 7th) and Furth im Wald (September 20th) to the border (October 15th) on the Imperial and Royal Bohemian Western Railway to Prague . With this, the 446-kilometer-long railway network approved in the 1856 concession was built within five years.
Schwandorf station soon became a hub in the central Upper Palatinate. In the Irrenlohe station, four km north of Schwandorf on the route to Nuremberg, the route to Weiden (40 km) began on October 1, 1863, following the Naab Valley , and divided into two branches: from December 1, 1863 to Bayreuth (58 km) and from August 15, 1864 to Mitterteich (39 km). On October 15, 1865, the continuation of the line to Eger was put into operation. There was a direct connection to the Bavarian Eger – Hof line , the Saxon Voigtland State Railway and from 1870 to the kk priv. Buschtěhrad Railway (BEB) and from 1872 to the kk priv. Kaiser Franz Josephs-Bahn (KFJB). The construction of two short port railways to the Danube lands in Regensburg and Passau completed the second construction phase on October 1, 1865, which was regulated by the concession of January 3, 1862.
After an investment break of several years, the Ostbahn began to correct errors and detours in the route from the early years on the basis of a concession from August 3, 1869 from 1871 to 1873 by connecting the large cities of the region with each other using the shortest possible route, e.g. B. Nuremberg with Regensburg via Neumarkt , Regensburg with Straubing via Radldorf and Regensburg with Landshut via Neufahrn . These approximately 160 kilometers long connections and the branch line from Wiesau to Tirschenreuth went into operation in 1872/73. The direct railway line Regensburg – Nuremberg over the Franconian and Upper Palatinate Jura, which shortened the connection by 40 kilometers, was only made possible by the interim construction of more powerful locomotives. This construction program also includes the 81 km long Mühldorf (Obb) - Neumarkt (Rott) - Pilsting - Plattling line, opened on October 15, 1875, and the Weiden - Neukirchen bei Sulzbach line , 51.5 km long, on the same day could be opened.
A fourth, 72-kilometer cross-border rail link from Plattling via Deggendorf and Zwiesel to Bayerisch Eisenstein ( Plattling – Bayerisch Eisenstein ) with a connection to the Pilsen – Priesen (–Komotau) (EPPK) railway, for which the Bavarian Eastern Railway had received the concession in 1872 , was still under construction when it was nationalized and was not put into operation by the Bavarian State Railways until 1877. The same applies to the 41.6 km long connecting line Landshut - Pilsting, opened on May 15, 1880, with a connection to the Mühldorf (Obb) - Plattling line.
nationalization
As a result of the founders' crash of 1873, the economic situation of the Eastern Railway worsened, so that in 1874 the state interest guarantee was threatened. The Bavarian state then decided to take over the private railway. By law of April 15, 1875, he acquired the Ostbahn on May 10, 1875 and merged it with the Bavarian State Railways on January 1, 1876 . At that time, the Bavarian Eastern Railway already had a railway network of 905 kilometers in length. It had a share capital of 80 million guilders. To finance the takeover, the Bavarian state issued bonds worth the equivalent of 167 million marks. In addition, he took over the company's priority bonds worth approx. 40 million marks. For a share with a nominal value of 200 guilders, the shareholders received this four percent Bavarian state bond with a nominal value of 400 marks.
Locomotives and wagons
All of the locomotives that were purchased were built by JA Maffei in Munich, as the head of the company played a major role in the capital of the Ostbahn. The company had earmarked 6.6 million guilders from the share capital for the initial procurement of vehicles. In addition to the locomotives, the purchase of 200 passenger cars, 30 baggage cars and 720 boxcars and 398 open freight cars for various purposes was planned.
From December 1857, the company purchased Crampton locomotives (class A) with a 2A wheel arrangement for fast passenger transport. These twelve machines had running wheels of 1219 mm and driving wheels of 1829 mm in diameter. From 1859 a further twelve machines with the 1A1 wheel arrangement were purchased from Maffei. All machines were converted to the 1B wheel arrangement from 1869 and placed in class B.
In the early days, freight trains were not driven purely, but freight wagons were attached to passenger trains. For these mixed trains and later purely passenger trains, a total of 85 class B locomotives with a 1B wheel arrangement were purchased over many years.
It was not until 1862 that the company procured triple-coupled machines with the C wheel arrangement as class C, initially with large wheel diameters of 1524 mm. A total of 64 such locomotives with different wheel sizes, later mainly with a diameter of 1253 mm, were purchased, which from 1867 also carried the pure freight trains.
The tank locomotives were run as class D locomotives, of which the Ostbahn procured a total of twelve and took over two from Deggendorf-Plattlinger Eisenbahn AG .
| line | number of pieces | design type | delivered | at state railway |
switched off |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. | 12 | 2A n2 | 1857-58 | B IX * | 1902-08 |
| A. | 12 | 1A1 n2 | 1859 | B IX * | 1902-08 |
| B. | 66 | 1B n2 | 1858-66 | BV | 1900-11 |
| B. | 19th | 1B n2 | 1873-75 | B IX | 1907-12 |
| C. | 12 | C n2 | 1862-63 | C II | 1899-06 |
| C. | 52 | C n2 | 1867-75 | C III | 1921-24 |
| D. | 12 | B n2t | 1867-71 | D IV | 1895-24 |
| D. | 2 | B n2t | 1866 | D II | 1895 |
| E. | 2 | B n2 | 1869 | BV | 1900-08 |
/ * after conversion around 1870 into 1B n2 machines.
Details on the individual series of locomotives can be found in the list of Bavarian locomotives and railcars .
literature
- Erhard Born: 100 years of the Bayerische Ostbahn and its vehicles. Munich 1958.
- Manfred Bräunlein: The Ostbahnen, royally privileged and Bavarian; 1851 to 1875. Nuremberg 2000, ISBN 3-88929-078-7 .
- Bernhard Ücker: 150 years of the railway in Bavaria. Fürstenfeldbruck 1985, ISBN 3-922404-02-2 .
- Wolfgang Klee, Ludwig v. Welser: Bayern Report , Volumes 1–5, Fürstenfeldbruck 1993–1995.
- German Reichsbahn: The German railways in their development 1835–1935. Berlin 1935.
- Karl Böhm: Railway construction Munich – Straubing. In: Annual report of the historical association for Straubing and the surrounding area , 82nd year 1980, Straubing 1981.
- Walther Zeitler: Railways in Lower Bavaria and Upper Palatinate. 2nd Edition. Amberg 1997, ISBN 3-924350-61-2 .